The Guardians of the Galaxy, one of Marvel’s most profitable titles, was originally a massive gamble by the studio, as the motley crew were unknown to the vast majority of the audience the filmmakers were aiming at.

But with a healthy cocktail of mischief, Chris Pratt’s charm, and adorable tree-like creatures (not forgetting an amazing soundtrack), the gang became on a level with The Avengers in terms of popularity.

Two of the integral characters to the film were Drax, played by David Bautista, and Groot, played by Vin Diesel.

Obviously, Groot in the film is all CGI and mo-cap technology, so the gruesome twosome have never had the privilege of meeting face to face – until now:

A post shared by David Bautista (@davebautista) on Jan 29, 2018 at 4:43pm PST

What an incredible picture! The photo came from Bautista’s instagram page, showing the wrestler-turned-actor at Disneyland.

If you didn’t already know, Marvel is owned by Disney, as is Star Wars, which technically makes Princess Leia a Disney Princess, so chew on that.

The Guardians of the Galaxy have their own attraction at Disneyland called Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! which replaced the Tower of Terror at the park.

Marvel

Obviously, the Groot we see in the pic above is Groot from the first film, when the creature is in adulthood. At the end of the film, we see Groot blasted to pieces, but he is thankfully able to be regrown as a little sapling.

In the sequel we got baby Groot, and according to reports we will have teenage Groot pop up in Avengers: Infinity War.

We have the opportunity to expand iconic franchises for new generations of fans.

We’re also looking forward to expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe to include X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool.

Fox/Disney

With Disney declaring themselves happy to make some rather potty-mouthed R-rated films, fans shouldn’t worry that their beloved sarcastic and violent hero Deadpool will be ruined by the House of Mouse.

Hopefully, with the different branches of the Marvel comics universe under one banner, we can maybe get a successful screen iteration of Fantastic Four, because the previous two attempts have been less than satisfactory.

Either way, the potential creative directions the X-Men can take the MCU in are endless, so all concerns about monopolistic ownership in the film industry aside, yay for Disney!